RideAbility Heartbeat 2/1/2015

This will be my first RideAbility Heartbeat email for 2015. In 2014, due to my mother’s illness and being involved in so much of her daily care I didn’t have the time&energy to keep up on this type of communication – and I missed telling everyone what was going on! I am planning to send out frequent email updates on the RideAbility program during this year – what’s going on both in the program offerings and “behind the scenes”.

So, a couple of summary points from 2014:
– We lost Kathy Tanabe to cancer and we miss her SO MUCH! I can’t even express …

– Our program, classes and events occurred as scheduled and they were all wonderful and effective at serving our community – because we have the BEST volunteers!

– Hannah our horse won PATH Intl. Region 6 “Equine of the Year” and 4 of us (Nancy Yorke and my family Jim, Jeanie, Jacob) traveled to San Diego to receive her award at the national conference. The experience was incredible, and the conference gave us a lot of wonderful new ideas.

For 2015, we have had a great start so far:

– A great horse care&exercise team comes out to the barn every week on Thursday evening and scoops manure, catches&grooms horses, and even does some saddling, riding and practicing at the ramp.

– Our Executive Board of directors has already had one meeting and they are all doing a great job at offering their time and talents to RideAbility.

– We have started an Operations Board (also known as a “working board”) to keep focused on things that need to get done. We have had one meeting, and we plan to have one meeting per month, usually on Saturdays. All RideAbility members and volunteers are welcome to attend – but be ready to get assigned a project!

– We continue to evaluate horses and plan for their work in our program. If you would like to receive status reports on our horses please email me (promisedmeadows@gmail.com) and ask to be put on the Horse Status email list.

In January we have already submitted and delivered out 1099 forms to our horse care givers, barn managers and administrative helpers. I have just completed the 2015 insurance application and will be sending it out on Monday.

We reformatted the RideAbility Participation form. This is the form every volunteer fills out and signs every year … so, be sure to sign the new form! (

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ou can find it on the website –

​you can ​

print it at home and sign it and bring it to the barn – or send it in the mail if that is easier for you – RideAbility PO Box 995 Pine Island, MN 55963.)